“…creative thought is a trial-and-error process that generally produces a series of failed associations before a creative solution emerges.”

“Furthermore, the associative thinking people draw on during the creative process makes it difficult to assess progress toward a solution…these features lead people to experience creative thought as effortful and they lead people to feel like additional ideas or solutions will be difficult to generate. In other words, creative tasks are experienced with an inherent level of disfluency that is produced by the creative thinking required to work through those tasks”